A heated socio-economic debate has been roiling America for the past two weeks: what income does a household really need to be able to get by without undue strain in US society in 2025, and why does it feel like the financial threshold for a middle-class life has been climbing ever higher?

The discussion was kicked off by asset manager Michael Green, who argued that families could not comfortably function today on less than $140,000 due in large part to spiralling costs for essential spending categories such as childcare, college tuition and health.

Green’s figure raised more than a few eyebrows among economists who study these sorts of questions for a living — $140,000 is almost 70 per cent higher than the median US household income. A series of careful analyses of the data he invoked to make his case revealed mis-steps in his calculations that led him to a figure far higher than any reasonable method could produce. But his article nonetheless struck a chord with some, who felt that even if the precise numbers were off they pointed to a larger societal truth: the increasing sense of financial precarity among the middle class.